GPH Frustrated at Excessive Public Records Requests

May 9, 2024 by Allison Wilson

Geauga Public Health officials voiced frustration April 24 regarding complications caused by an excess number of public records requests the department has received in recent months.

“As I’ve said from the beginning, I’m a huge proponent of public records because that’s how you keep your government in check,” said Health Administrator Adam Litke during the board of health’s regular meeting. “(However), these things do have a cost.”

Litke said a lawyer has to check over every request to ensure they aren’t breaching the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

“The reality, though, is the budget has to change as these requests come in because I didn’t budget for continued requests of this nature,” he said, adding a recent request featured six or seven different bullet points.

“It’s gonna add up. And there’s texts, emails and communications, something like that, for both (Geauga Public Health and Lake County General Health District), so it’s going to take a while,” he added.

At the time of meeting, it wasn’t known how many documents the request would entail. A budget for the request could not be listed until the department knew the number of records.

A previous request of around 9,000 documents cost the department around $5,000, said GPH’s legal representative, Bryan Kostura.

“Last year, we had the one (request) that was 100,000 records, and that was about $50,000,” he said.

The cost may vary depending on how much review is necessary and what is being requested.

“As soon as we get the records request in, we reach out, acknowledge it and then we have to maintain that relationship with the requester and keep them informed of what’s going on throughout the entire process, so that they don’t think that we’re sitting on our hands,” Kostura explained. “Because that’s the last thing GPH is ever doing, is sitting on their hands. They are actively working on these requests.”

Kostura described some of the steps required to fulfill a records request.

“It depends upon, really, what is the amount of review that’s necessary. Because there are certain things that are not considered records,” he said. “So, automatically you have to review all of the documents that come in and say, well, what are records under the Ohio Revised Code and what are not records.”

Once the non-records are removed, documents must be reviewed for redacting to avoid issues such as HIPAA or attorney-client privilege violations. A rationale for excluding records must also be provided, he said.

“I’m certainly in favor of turning over documents and keeping everything in the sunshine,” said board member Carolyn Brakey. “The problem is that it does take a lot of time, and we have statutory functions to carry out as a health department and we are unable to carry those out when you are replying to these requests.”

Brakey was also not thrilled at the cost.

“I mean, to hear there’s a $50,000 cost to taxpayers from one public records request is pretty shocking,” she said.

Litke noted he is commonly asked why the department doesn’t handle requests by themselves. There can be a few reasons for this, he explained.

As a person often named in the requests, he does not want to accidentally withhold anything and as an individual, and he does not know the intricacies of HIPAA, he said.

“The last one we did (in house) shut the health department down for most of the day,” he said. “And that was to save costs.”

Some of the requests have been the same person asking for the same documents multiple times over, Brakey noted.

The related legal costs and fluctuating number of requests have made it difficult for Litke to budget accurately, he said. Kostura added the numbers were low in November and December of last year, but picked up in January and February.

“I would love to say I can account for it, I can’t,” Litke said. “I can’t account for it. I have nothing that would tell me what to expect.”